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Caspian – March of

Of the tiger , three became extinct during the 20th century: The Balinese Tiger ( balica, 1937), the Javanese Tiger (Panthera tigris sondaica, 1980s) and the (Panthera tigris virgata, 1970s). Of those three, the Caspian Tiger is for me the most fascinating. While the two first was the most Southern tiger subspecies, the Caspian Tiger (also known as Persian Tiger, Turanian Tiger and Hyrcanian Tiger) was the westernmost, being the subspecies that lived more close to Europe and even inhabiting some parts of the Old Continent. Notorious for his reddish coat, genetically speaking the Caspian Tiger is very close to the , wich in the nowadays lives in the and in parts of Northeast and in the Far North of North . In the past, the Caspian Tiger lived in a area that encompassed from West to East from Eastern to Northwest China (province of Xinjiang1) and from north to South from the Upper Yeniseï to Northern , passing through , the coastal area of , Northern , Northern , Former Soviet Central and parts of Southern and Western . And according to the Part 2 of the second volume of the book “ of the ”, of the soviet zoologist Vladimir Georgevich Heptner, those in the Middle Ages inhabited places like the Azov Sea coast region, the Donbass and even Eastern Ukraine and Southeast Belarus, perhaps even reaching in his zenith Eastern Poland (to the East of Vistula ), Moldavia and Eastern Hungary (in that Hungary had under his control Transylvania, Transcarpathia2 and the actual Slovakia, as well Croatia, parts of Bosnia and the Vojvodina3 region in Northern Serbia. Those territories Hungary lost at the end of the First World War with the Treaty of Trianon in 1920). However, at the turn of the 19th century to the 20th, his range was already very reduced, to the point of in Caucasus being basically restricted to Southeast Azerbaijan and in places like southern Siberia and parts of his presence being more eventual than fix, or even extinct from some areas that lived before. The present work pretends, above all, make a approximate chronological reconstitution of the march of extinction that the Caspian Tiger suffered from the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern

1 Read Sintzian, because in mandarin the particles x and j reads as s and tz, respectively. And when a word ends in consonant this is mute. 2 Region situated in the actual Southwest Ukraine, in the border with Hungary, Romenia and Slovakia. From the 10th Century to the 20th it was part of Hungary. Encompasses a great part of the actual oblast of Zakarpattia. 3 Read Voivodina, because in Hungarian, as well in other languages like the Polish, the German, the Dutch, Serbian, Croat, Slovak, the Baltic and Scandinavian languages and the Slovenian, the particle j reads as i. Age until culminate in final extinction in the second half of the 20th Century, as well make a reconstitution of the Caspian Tiger range in his zenith. According with the materials that i have, the Caspian Tiger was extinct of the regions that lived in the following dates: Ukraine, Donbass and Azov – According to Heptner, the kievan Velikiï Knyaz‟4 (cirílico russo великий князь) Vladimir II Monomakh was attacked not by a lion, a or a leopard as proposed before, but by a tiger (called by the Kievan sovereign in his book Poucheniya Detyam/поучения детям as the fierce beast, or in Russian lyutyï zver‟/лютый зверь), while making a hunt in Chernigov during the years that ruled the principalities of Turov and Chernigov (1073 to 1094). According to the words of the Kievan Prince, the tiger jumped over his thighs and wounded him and his horse, but thanks to God his life was spared from death. Taking in account the geographic proximity with the Caucasus and the South Russian steppes, in Ukraine tigers inhabited most the eastern and Southern parts, were there are regions like Zaporozhie5, Donetsk, Lugansk and Kharkov (the region of New Russia, or in Russian Novorossiya). And in the same way that the Siberian tigers in the northeast extremity of his domains crossed the frozen Strait of Tartary in the winters with certain frequency to make incursions in the north of the Sakhalin6 Island (and also taking in account that the Great Asian Felid is a good swimmer, to the point that in past be able to colonize islands like Sumatra, Java and Bali in Indonesia), very probably the Caspian tigers in northwest extremity of his range used the Strait of Kerch to make incursions and even colonize Crimea, coming from the Taman Peninsula to the east (as well further north the South Ukraine via Perekop Isthmus). That strait freezes in the winter, and the mongol general Subotaï and his troops used to reach Crimea in the curse of the campaign of 1222/1223 in the Russian steppes, which culminated in the Mongol victory over the Russian and Cumans in the Battle of the Kalka River (fought in the vicinities of the actual Mariupol). If the winter ice of the Strait of Kerch was strong enough to permit the passage of one detachment of one chivalry army (which in the minimum should have circa of 10 thousand warriors, yet taking in account that Jebe, the other mongol general that leaded the campaign, entered in the actual Ukrainian via Don River, with the two joining forces in the Prekop Isthmus), certainly for a tiger it was no problem that crossing. Probably the tiger became extinct in the lands to the north of the Black and Azov Seas between the last centuries of the Middle Ages and the first centuries of the Modern Ages (i.e. between the 14th to the 17th centuries). Volga-Ural (tartar Idel-Yaik) – In a footnote of the page 120 Heptner occurrences of tigers in the oblasti7 of Astrakhan and Orenburg in Russia and in Kazakhstan in the

4 In Russian Great Prince. Along with Knyaz/Князь (Prince), was one of the titles used by the medieval russians to refer to the sovereigns of the russian principalities which originated of the fragmentation of the Kievan Rus‟. While the title Tsar/царь was reserved to the byzantine emperors (whose capital, Constantinople, was called Tsargrad/Царьград, “the city of the Tsar”) and to the mongol-tartar khans of the Golden Horde. Only with Ivan IV the Terrible (r. 1547 – 1584) that the Russian Sovereigns, after the process of formation of the Russian State centered in the principality of Muscovy, started to use the title Tsar, until the last, Nicholas II (r. 1894 – 1917). 5 Read Zaporojie, because in russian, as well in the ukrainian and belorrusian, the particle zh read as j (Cyrillic ж). 6 Read Sarralina, because in russian, as well in languages like the mongol, arab, farsi, ukrainian and belorrusian, the particle kh reads in the same way was the particle h in the english and the particle j in the Spanish (Cyrillic х). 7 Russian and Ukrainian Cyrillic о бласть. Plural области. Administrative subdivision of some slavic countries and of the Former Soviet Union, including Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Bulgaria and Kyrgyzstan. Generally is translated as region and/or province. In Imperial Russia that term was used to reffer to the provinces of the periferical regions of the country, administrated by a chief which at the same time cuidava of the civil and actual provinces to the west of the Ural River (Aterau and West Kazakhstan), the river that divides Kazakhstan in a European part to the West and a Asian part to the east. In other words, those were also present in the lower curses of the Volga and Ural River and to the south of the Ural Mountains. However, is not mentioned when the tiger became extinct (or even only visited) those places. In the page 243 of the book of Uruch Beg (which later entered in the service of the Spanish Kings, converting to the Roman Catholicism and adopting the name of Don Juan of Spain) about his embassies in Europe between 1599 to 1602, is mentioned in the episode of his visit to Russia (which took place between 1599 and 1600) that the members of his expedition saw many tigers in the hills of the lower Volga (which in that time was under total Russian control), as well , lions (perhaps a lion population which managed to survive in that place until that time) and martens. It seems that the tiger survived in the lower Volga (Either as a fix habitant, either as a vagrant coming from the lands further South and East) and in the other areas of the northern coast of the Caspian Sea at least until the first half of the 17th century. But certainly in the turn of the 18th to the 19th century the tiger was already extinct in the reeds of the Northern Caspian. Western () and Western Russian Caucasus – In the early 18th Century, the tiger was still found in few numbers in the eastern coast of the , in the regions of Adzharia and in the Kolkhid plains. Probably, they persisted in the Western Russian Caucasus until the 16th and 17th centuries. But in the first half of the 19th century they were already extinct from Western Georgia. In Eastern Georgia they were periodically seen until the early 20th century, with the last being killed in 1922 in the outskirts of , were they was seen before in 1820 and 1835. Eastern Russian Caucasus and Eastern Transcaucasia (Azerbaijan) – According to Heptner, incursions of tigers in the area of Derbent (now situated in the Russian Republic of Dagestan) and in northern Azerbaijan (Shemakha and Baku) took place in the 18th century and in the first half of the 19th century. It seems that in that time the presence of the tiger in Southern Dagestan and Northern Azerbaijan comprised of only some errant individuals and for some time the tiger was no more a fix habitant of those areas. Probably they became extinct in those areas during the 17th and 18th centuries. Derbent in one version of his coat of arms has a tiger. In the turn of the 19th to the 20th century in the Transcaucasia the tiger was a fix habitant only in the Talysh and Lenkoran regions of Southeast Azerbaijan, near the border with Iran. From there they made incursions to other places of the Caucasus further north and west. Those regions were the last outposts of the tiger in Caucasus. They were last seen there in the 1960s: one was captured in 1961 in the vicinaties of Astara and another two in the Lenkoran region between 1963 and 1966. Armenia (Lesser Caucasus) and Turkey – The last occurrence of tigers in Armenia took place in 1948. In Turkey the tiger was found in the eastern part of the country, especially in the areas near the border with Armenia, Georgia and Iran. In Ancient Times the actual Turkey was one of the principal areas were the tigers was captured to the roman arenas, taken the geographic proximity with Rome. The last individual was killed near , province of Hakkari, circa 1973. Iraq and Iran – In Iraq there was a occurrence of tigers in 1887 in outskirts of Mossul, probably a migrant coming from the north. Until the mid-20th century the tiger was a common animal in the northern provinces of Iran, located in the southern coast of the Caspian Sea. From his bases in Iran, those tigers made incursions further north in the regions of Caucasus and . However, in the 1950s they were already rare in Gorgan (province located near the border with Turkmenistan, which then was part of the Soviet Union), were they were seen for the last time in 1958 in the Mohammad military administration of the local. In the nowadays Russia has 46 oblasti in the total, the majority concentered in the european part of the country. Reza Shah reserve (today Golestan II). In the next decade, another individuals were seen in places like the near the border with Azerbaijan (then part of the Soviet Union) and in the Elburz mountains, were circa 15 to 20 individuals still lived in the area in the 1960s. In the 1970s, a search was made by the Department of Environmental Protection of Iran to see if they were still lives in the area, but none trace of them was found. Afghanistan – In the north, mais precisamente in the alluvial forests of the left bank of the Piandj River, the tiger was a common animal until the mid-1950s, becoming extinct circa 1963. However, during the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan (1979 – 1989) much information about apparitions of tigers in the soviet-afghan border were registered, with the last dated from 1998. Non-confirmed occurrences still took place in 2007 and 2008. Turkmenistan – Until the 19th century the tiger was found in Turkmenistan in the coastal area of the Caspian Sea, as well in the south ( Range and river valleys like Sumbar and ). But in the early 20th century they were nearly extinct from the Turkmen lands save in the Amu-Darya course, and in the next years the tiger presence in Turkmenistan consisted of nothing more than vagrant individuals coming from Iran and Afghanistan further south. The last record of tigers in Turkmen lands is dated of January 10, 1954, when the last was killed in Kaine-Kasyr in Western Kopet Dag. Uzbekistan – In the Uzbek lands the tiger was much common particularly in the region of the middle course of the Amu-Darya River (ancient Oxus) in the first years of the 19th century, including the vicinities of the capital . In the 17th century, between 1616 and 1639, the Sher Dor Madrassa was built under the orders of the Uzbek Khan Yalangtush, and in his facade there is two tigers under a bluish background. However, in Uzbek territory the tiger was already rare in the late 19th century. The tiger was present in vicinities of Nukus, near the actual Uzbek-Turkmen border, until 1938, when the last tiger of the place was killed. In 1942 a census was made and nothing more than 15 tigers was still living in the Lower Amu-Darya, near the . That number, even with the prohibition of 1947, didn‟t increase. In the same year, a tiger was killed and nothing more than 5 or 6 individuals was still living in the Lower Amu-Darya, with the last being killed in 1950 or 1951. After that, vagrant animals were seen in Uzbek territory in the years of 1955, 1963, 1968 (two times) and 1972. Kazakhstan – In the same footnote were Heptner talks about occurrences in the Northern Caspian Sea coast, he also mentions occurrences in the Northwest Kazakhstan, located to the east of the Ural River (river that according to same geographical conventions is one of the land borders between Europe and Asia) and to the north of Aral Sea. Further south, they occurred sometimes in the Ustyurt plateau, located between the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea, coming from the Lower Amu- Darya. In Southern Kazakhstan, they were present until the early 19th century in large numbers in the course of like Syr-Darya (ancient Jaxartes), Sarysu, Ul‟kun, Aksu, Karatal, , Turgaï and Talas, as well in the coastal areas of Aral Sea (were in the past there was large thicket reeds). In the Chu river area they are seen for the last time in 1937, while in the Aksu, in the Lepse and in Ayaguz they were seen in 1909, 1920 and 1908, respectively. Further north and west, in the Ishim and Irtysh Rivers, they were seen in the vicinities of the actual capital Astana (former Akmola) and in the Kokchetav Range. And in Eastern Kazakhstan the tiger was present from the actual border with Kyrgyzstan to the Altaï Range in the triple frontier with Russia and China, through the Lakes Balkash and Zaïsan and the Tien Shan mountains. However in the late 19th century they were extinct in the northernmost areas. In 1894 they were already extinct in the Zaïsan region. In the Kazakh Aral, the last tiger was shot in 1924. In the Syr- Darya they became rarer in the 1840s and 1850s due to the hunting of both tiger and his prey, as well the destruction of his habitat. However, these problems didn‟t prevented some vagrant animals being observed from there until 1937 and after a last incursion in 1945 in the vicinities of Kyzyl-Orda. The last outpost of the tiger in Kazakhstan was the Southern banks of the Balkash Lake. In the lower Karatal they were seen for the last time in 1931, and in the Middle they were extirpated between the late 19th century and early 20th century, being seen for the last time in 1929 and 1930. In the lower Ili they were seen for the last in 1948 (although they were common in the previous decade). However, a possible sighting of the big cat took place in 2006. – Tajikistan was the last outpost of the tiger in the Former Soviet Union. In the early 1930s between 15 to 20 animals lived in the lower , as well in other river valleys. In 1938 the reserve of Tigrovaya Balka (In Russian The Tiger Valley; Russian Cyrillic Тигровая балка) was established, located near the Soviet-Afghan border. In the 1950s probably no more than 15 deles of them remained in the southernmost of the Soviet Republics, and in 1953 they were seen in Tajikistan for the last time. However, individual incursions of animals coming from Afghanistan perhaps took place in 1955, 1957, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1964 and 1967. Kyrgyzstan – Already in the 19th century the tiger was rare in Kyrgyzstan, in places like the region of the Lake Issyk Kul, in the Terskeï Alatau Range and in the Chu valley. In the vicinities of Tokmak (former Balashagun), a group of Przewalskiï8 cossacks detachment was attacked by a tiger. About 1880 the last tiger in the Northern Kyrgyzstan was killed, and in the next decade they also became extinct in the South. Northwest China – Until the 19th century, tigers were common in the Chinese province of , in locals like the region of the Manas and Tarim rivers and the outskirts of the Lake Lop (where since 1960 is used by China for nuclear tests). Of the first and the third region the tiger died out in the 1920s. The last outpost of the tiger in Xinjiang was the Manas River basin, where they were seen for the last time in the 1950s. Contributed for the extinction of the Caspian Tiger in his Far Eastern outpost the use of the water of those rivers and lakes for irrigation of crops, as well the deforestation of the riparian forests and hunting. Northern Mongolia and Southern Siberia – The tiger was an animal know by the peoples of Southern Siberia for centuries. Considering that the tiger appears in the animalistic art of the funerary complex of Pazyryk (dated from 500 to 300 Before Christ), as well in the art of people like the Khunnu (called in the Chinese annals as Xiongnu and seen by historians like the French Joseph De Gignes9 and the British Edward Gibbon as the ancestors of the huns that invaded Europe in the 4th and 5th centuries) in Tuva, were generally they was represented fighting with animals like camels, horses and even dragons (tal type of art was also found in various locations in the Former and even in the Lower Volga). Further north, in the actual Republic of Khakassia in the Upper Yeniseï, the tiger appears in the Kyrgyz art of the 9th century, in a bronze plate were a knight targets his arrow in a tiger that jumps over his horse. Heptner also mentions possible occurrences of tigers in the actual Republic of Tuva in the first half of the 19th century. It seems that is probable that in pre-modern times a corridor to the northeast of the Altaï Mountains and to the west of Baikal Lake through by the Upper Yeniseï (encompassing in Russia the Republics of Tuva, Altaï and Khakassia, the kraya10 of Altaï and Krasnoyarsk and the oblasti11 of and

8 Read Pshevalskiï, because in the Polish Language the particles prz and w, respectively, read as psh and v. 9 Read De Guinhes. In the French Language, as well in Italian, the particle gn has the same meaning of the particle nh in Portuguese and the ñ in Spanish. 10 Singular kraï (Russian Cyrillic край). Administrative division of Russia, generally traduced as region, territory or province. In the nowadays the Russian Federation has nine kraya in total (Primorskiï, and Kamchatka in the Far East, Altaï and Zabaïkalskiï near the border with Mongolia, Stavropol and Krasnodar in Northern Caucasus, Perm‟ in the Urals and Kemerovo, as well parts of North Mongolia) linking the Caspian Tiger and the Siberian Tiger existed, which can explain the great genetical proximity between the two subspecies. And the occurrences in the 19th and 20th centuries proves that what the Ancient Scythes and the Medieval Kyrgyz‟s wasn‟t not mere legends and tales (although in ancient and medieval times the tiger certainly was certainly more common and more numerous in that areas), but were animals that they knew and saw with his own eyes: Heptner mentions occurrences of those tigers in that time in locals like the vicinities of cities like Zmeinogorsk, Biïsk and Barnaul. In 1839 one of those tigers was hunted and killed in the vicinities of the Setovka village of the Biïsk province. That tiger was measured and weighted: 290 kilograms and 2.80 meters of length, and the Russian Tsar, Nicholas I, sent money for the stuffing of the tiger. In 1848 another was killed in the vicinities of Zmeinogorsk. In the same epoch another was seen in Barnaul (unfortunately i don‟t manage to found the exact date of the occurrence). In 1914 the last possible occurrence of tigers in the Russian Altaï took place: a group of local farmers said that a great stripped animal was seen in the banks of the Lake Kanonerskoe. The information was passed to the police, wich don‟t take the case as serious. Conclusion

After read and reread the book of Heptner, as well another works, is clear that even before of a major human action took place in the habitat of the Caspian Tiger, the same was already in decline (even before the Imperial Russia authorities started his colonization program of the Caucasian and Central Asian lands and put the Imperial Army to hunt them in masse). The reasons? In some places like Azov and Ukraine, only we can speculate, as the extinction process wasn‟t documented. Further South, in places like Transcaucasia and Former Soviet Central Asia, is know that a dispute for lands between the Russian settlers and the tigers, with the first clamming the courses of the Central Asian river to transform in rice and cotton fields (politic that lately dried the Aral Sea through the deviation of his waters to the crops), among other crops. To conduct the extermination of the big cat, a bounty system was established for those who killed them. And unlike the Siberian Tiger which lives in a continuous area until the nowadays, the Caspian Tiger (at least in the 19th and 20th centuries) inhabited more dispersed areas between them, to the point that in the desert areas of Central Asia they only occurs as a vagrant. Then the man-animal conflict was much more harmful for the Caspian Tiger. This is a very similar situation that in the nowadays the remaining tigers of Asia (save for those that lives in the Russian Far East and in the Sunderbans in the northeast of Indian Subcontinent). With the difference that while the Caspian Tiger populations of Central Asia where isolated among them by the deserts and semideserts of the area, in places lake in much of India and Southeast Asia the tiger is isolated by the growing human presence around, as the tiger lives in some the most populous and most densely populous countries of the World. While in Russian Far East, a place which have colder and wilder climate, the human presence is lesser than in South and Southeast Asia. However, the Russians wasn‟t the only guilty for his decline and later extinction in the 20th century: the reading of Heptner‟s book suggests that even before Imperial Russia conquer great areas were the Caspian Tiger lived, this was already in a process of decline and local (with natural factors probably contributing for that), and

Krasnoyarsk in Central Siberia), being that term generally used for locals in the geographical periphery of Russia. 11 In the , for the formation of plural when a word ends in consonant the particle y (Cyrillic ы) must be added, save when preceded by g (Г), k (К), kh (Х), zh (Ж), ch (Ч), sh (Ш), shch(Щ), ï (й) and „(ь). In that cases, the particle i (и) must be added. apparently the politics like the killings in the early 20th century only accelerated the process. And also the Russians, in the Soviet Period, put both the Siberian Tiger and the Caspian Tiger under legal protection in 1947 (Soviet Union was the first country to protect legally the tiger, even before India started the Project Tiger). As we know Soviet Union was able to save the first from extinction (which at the time of the Second World War had no more than 50 individuals in the wild), but the second, although more numerous, cannot be saved from extinction. In his zenith, the Caspian Tiger stretched from an area that encompassed from the Carpathians to Xinjiang and from Upper Yeniseï to Northern Iraq, through the Dnieper, Don, Volga and Ural basins, Caucasus, Eastern Turkey, northern Iran and Afghanistan, Former Soviet Central Asia, Northern Mongolia and the Altaï Range area. The march of the extinction probably started in the lands to the North of the Black Sea, and then marched east towards the South Russian Steppes, then south towards Caucasus and Central Asia and finally ending with the extinction in Turkey and Iran. In the nowadays, there is a Project to reintroduce the tiger in the Ili river delta region in Kazakhstan. For that purpose tigers from Siberia will be introduced to repopulate the area. According to News of the Portal Tengrinews in English, in 2019 is possible that a new National Park for the Caspian Tiger will be open. This after 71 years of absence in the local. The great challenge for that Project is, after the reintroduction of the tiger in the area, deal with the conflicts between the man and animal and the protection to the felids of the hunger of the Asian Black Market by his organs and bones, which people like the Chinese, Korean and Japanese attributes some medical and aphrodisiac properties. Without an effective protection of the tiger, as well of his prey (because without his natural prey the tiger fatally will attack the cattle of the farms and even people, aggravating the conflict between man and animal), the reintroduction in the Lower Ili was totally useless.

Sources

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